75th Venice International Film Festival and Stars Swaying with Gondolas

Festival in Media

2018-09-03

On August 29th, Lido Island and Venice Film Festival captured the attention of the world press. Stars swaying with gondolas and world premieres are observed by thousands of people every day and every morning starts with film critiques of "The Guardian" and "Variety".

The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement was awarded to Vanessa Redgrave this year and The Aspern Papers by Julien Landais was presented to the audience on August 30th, where the British actress performs one of the leading roles. Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement will also be awarded to Canadian filmmaker, David Cronenberg and Venice audience will see his 1993 film "M.Butterfly". On September 5th, he'll also hold a master class for interested audience.

The 75th festival jury is presided by Guillermo Del Toro, whose film "The Shape of Water" got the Golden Lion last year

The festival was opened with a biographic drama, First Man by La La Land director Damien Chazelle where Ryan Gosling portrays an American astronaut, Neil Armstrong. Armstrong was the first man ever to step on the moon. In 1969 he led a spaceflight Apollo 11. The spacecraft launched from Kennedy Space Center on July 16th and in 4 days, it landed on the Moon. This was the event which was observed on air from all over the world. "It is a true privilege to present the world premiere of Damien Chazelle's new film." Claimed festival director Alberto Barbera before the opening.

Festival competition programme will show numerous interesting and very different sort of films. Damien Chazelle's First Man which opened the festival is in the competition programme line-up with a six part western, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs by Ethan and Joel Coen; Luca Gudagnino's Suspiria about dance academy; 70s' Mexican chronicles in Alfonso Cuaron's Roma; 18th century story in The Favorite by Yorgos Lanthimos; An epic portrayal of the events in Peterloo by Mike Leigh; Doubles Vies by Olivier Assayas; Jacques Audiard's Sisters Brothers about a duet of assassins and a lot more.

Besides the prizes for the competition programmes, the festival pays a great attention to upcoming directors and actors. The festival will give out Luigi de Laurentiis Venice Award for the best Debut Film and The Marcello Mastroiani Award for the best debut performance.

A special programme, "Venice Classics" is held every year during the festival which presents restored films and documentaries about cinema. This programme is headed by an Italian director and screenwriter Salvatore Mereu who, with the assistance of his 26 students, will award a special prizes to the best pictures of this section. This programme will show: The Nighr Porter by Liliana Cavani, The Street of Shame by Kenji Mizoguchi, Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad, Luchino Visconti's Death in Venice, Paul Wegener's The Golem etc.

Last year, the festival held a new programme "Biennale College Cinema - Virtual Reality" which presented 360 grade films, installations and performances. This year, Venice Film Festival "Virtual Reality" will present the 11 best projects. Each team consists of a director and a producer, who were given a task to create a 30 minute Virtual Reality. The countries among winner projects are: Argentine, Brazil, India, France, Italy, USA, Great Britain and Russia.

The Film Festival will be closed on Septmber 8th with Driven by an Irish filmmaker Nick Hamm.